Starting Now

Here begins the golden age
Of feral domesticates.
Quitting domestication

Will be, as beginning was,
A many-layered process,
An oniony thing. Quitting,

Sensu lato, is always
Many layered, from the small
Refusal to the last no,

From I-would-prefer-not-to
To the self-constructed noose,
And not all quitting’s complete.

So with domestication,
Also, many small ledges
Step away to wilderness,

And many lives, maybe most,
Will pause or stop completely
At not wild, merely feral,

While the machines slowly
Shift domestication’s weight
From beasts and souls of burden.

There will be lives less useful
But even more dependent,
Pushed to edges and outskirts,

And some of them will flourish
In post-domestic twilight,
Until there are more feral

Than either harnessed or wild.
Then the feral will evolve
Their golden age, starting now.